254 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the evolution of the scientific study of plants grew out of the previous 

 study of them solely for medical purposes. 



She does not mention it, but we all make use of two familiar 

 expressions which appear to be due to old medical botany, when 

 everyone who could grew their own " simples," i.e. the separate species 

 which were made up into a " compound " drug; some containing 

 no less than fifty simples combined. It was most important to get 

 the crop " well cut and dried " before winter. When, however, " drugs " 

 {i.e. " dried " herbs) were found not to have the virtues assigned to 

 them, we may assume that they became unsaleable as " drugs in the 

 market " ! 



" Makers of British Botany. — A collection of Biographies by living 

 Botanists." Edited by F. W. Oliver. 8vo., 323 pp. (University 

 Press, Cambridge, 1913.) 9s. net. 



This interesting volume contains the biographies of seventeen 

 botanists, as well as a sketch of the Professors of Botany in Edinburgh 

 from 1670 until 1887, by I. B. Balfour. 



We learn from the Introduction that the volume represents a 

 course of lectures arranged by the Board of Studies in Botany of the 

 University of London and delivered in 191 1 at the University College. 

 There were ten lectures, but additional biographies were added to make 

 the work more fully representative. 



Four of the botanists lived in the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries; one only living entirely in the latter. Four lived from 

 the eighteenth into the nineteenth century ; and six in the nineteenth. 

 Lastly, Sir J. D. Hooker and Marshall Ward died in the twentieth. 



Reading the lives consecutively, one gets an admirable conception 

 of the progress of the science from the seventeenth to the twentieth 

 century. The earliest " botanists " were herbalists, as plants were 

 only collected for their supposed uses as drugs ; it was not till the 

 sixteenth century that plants began to be studied, and classified in 

 anything like a scientific way. 



In the life of Grew (1641-1712), who initiated the study of vegetable 

 anatomy, we find he " was alive to the importance of the ecological 

 standpoint," for he observes " the proper Places also of Plants . . . 

 should be considered ... as to Climate, Region, Seed, &c." 



It was in Grew's time that Sir T. Millington suggested that the 

 stamens were the male organs : thence Linnaeus subsequently 

 established his sexual system. 



Hales, the Father of Physiology, lived from 1677 to 1761. Of his 

 "Vegetable Staticks," the botanist Sachs observes: "It was the 

 first comprehensive work the world had seen devoted to the nutrition 

 of plants and the movement of the sap." 



Space will not allow a more extended account, but the reader will 

 gather that in each life he will find the most prominent features 

 of each man's life work in the study and advance of botanical 

 science. 



